The Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS) is a tool used to classify the severity and urgency of emergency department (ED) patients, focusing on their symptoms. In consideration of the importance of the KTAS, a web-based learning program has emerged as a new mode of education; it enables ED triage nurses to access it anytime and anywhere, and according to their own learning abilities. This study aimed to develop a web-based KTAS learning program and evaluate its effects on self-efficacy and triage performance ability in ED nurses.

A quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest was used. The conceptual framework was Bandura's self-efficacy theory. There were 30 participants in the experimental group and 29 in the control group. The experimental group attended an orientation and 4 sessions of a web-based KTAS learning program. The learning program lasted 280 minutes over five weeks, consisting of 40 minutes of orientation and four 60-minute sessions.

The scores of self-efficacy, triage performance ability in KTAS level, and chief complaints significantly increased in the experimental group compared to the control group. In addition, the numbers of under-triage in KTAS significantly decreased in the experimental group in comparison to the control group.

The results suggest that the learning program was effective in improving ED nurses' level of self-efficacy and triage performance ability (KTAS level and KTAS chief complaint). Accordingly, the web-based KTAS learning program can be applied as an education intervention to improve ED nurses' triage skill.

The aim of this study was to identify the predictive validity of the Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS).

This methodological study used data from National Emergency Department Information System for 2016. The KTAS disposition and emergency treatment results for emergency patients aged 15 years and older were analyzed to evaluate its predictive validity through its sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value.

In case of death in the emergency department, or where the intensive care unit admission was considered an emergency, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the KTAS were 0.916, 0.581, 0.097, and 0.993, respectively. In case of death in the emergency department, or where the intensive or non-intensive care unit admission was considered an emergency, the sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 0.700, 0.642, 0.391, and 0.867, respectively.

The results of this study showed that the KTAS had high sensitivity but low specificity. It is necessary to constantly review and revise the KTAS level classification because it still results in a few errors of under and over-triage. Nevertheless, this study is meaningful in that it was an evaluation of the KTAS for the total cases of adult patients who sought help at regional and local emergency medical centers in 2016.

This study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of a behavioral cue checklist (BCC) containing 17 items developed by Wilkes et al. (2010) for identifying potentially violent patients in emergency departments.

This was a prospective observational study to evaluate the usefulness of the Korean version of a BCC (K-BCC) as an assessment tool for predicting patient violence in emergency departments, and was conducted over 4 weeks in a regional emergency medical center located in B City. A total of 1,324 patients were finally analyzed.

Logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate whether each item of the K-BCC predicts violence, and a parsimonious set of 8 statistically significant items was selected for the tool. Receiver operating characteristic analysis of the BCC showed that the area under the curve was .97 (95% confidence interval: .94~1.0). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value at the cut-off score of 2 were 75.6%, 98.9%, 68.2%, and 99.2%, respectively.

The K-BCC was found to be useful in predicting patient violence toward emergency department staff. This tool is simple, and fast to use and can play a significantly role identifying potentially violent patients. Owing to this advance identification, this tool can be helpful in preventing the potential for violence from manifesting as violent behaviors.